


time after time

by wildcard_47



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And Picks Up A New Hobby, Aziraphale Learns A Bebop Song, Crowley Pines Like A Pine Tree Soaked in Pine-Sol, M/M, Music Makes The Heart Grow Fonder (And Also Makes Crowley's Plants Grow), Romantic Mixes, happy endings, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22501636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Written for the 2020 Good Omens Big Bang.Aziraphale decides to declare his romantic intentions to Crowley through a medium used by lovers immemorial: the mixtape. Step one: find out just what a mix is....
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	time after time

The real trouble began while street-parked near Bloomsbury Square, on the first and fateful day that the angel Aziraphale heard a bebop song played by a busker, and genuinely enjoyed it.

But actually, our story began in 1935 with a 3-½ litre Bentley Derby coupe. First, this shining automobile was made by the Thrupp & Maberly coachwork company, then promptly remade many times by one Anthony J. Crowley, then re-remade in the fall of 2019 after an apocalypse-that-wasn’t.

On the fateful afternoon in question, said Bentley roared up to the London curb at roughly 90 miles per hour: tires squealing, driver snarling, and passenger complaining.

“Crowley!” Seconds after they jerked to a stop, the angel loosened his grip on the dashboard. “You promised you’d mind the street sweepers.”

“Nah. They didn’t promise to mind my car.” The demon wrenched his door open with a huff of a laugh, as a street sweeper found itself displaced three feet down the curb, continuing on with its day as if nothing were amiss. “Back in a tick, angel.”

“Well, you can’t just—” Aziraphale stopped talking, realizing Crowley had sauntered off and was likely ignoring whatever complaints he might have, anyway. “Ugh, you silly serpent. I don’t mind saying that was rather a close call.”

If Crowley heard him, he did not respond. The Bentley, on the other hand, tipped her rearview mirror in a way that caught the light.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know  _ you  _ know how to drive, dear,” Aziraphale said by way of reassurance. “But we have already lost you once, and I am certainly not keen on repeating that experience. Or in being discorporated, come to think of it.”

The Bentley clicked the CD player in a way that meant it agreed.

“Yes. Would be simply awful. We’d have to get used to one of those terribly modern machines if anything happened to you, perhaps one with all those horrid buttons and levers. Even the  _ Blueteeth. _ It wouldn’t be  _ nearly _ as clever. Probably wouldn’t even  _ know  _ Freddie Mercury.”

The engine purred in a way that told Aziraphale she was pleased by the compliment; without warning, she rolled down the passenger-side window so Aziraphale could look outside.

“Ah! Well, I – forgive me, dear girl, but what, precisely, am I supposed to be observing at the moment?” Aziraphale squinted out at the busy pavement. “I don’t see Crowley.”

The Bentley pushed his seat forward slightly. Never mind that this particular automobile was manufactured without the ability to adjust one’s seat, let alone possess an intractable CD player, the ability for climate control or even a cigarette lighter in order to charge Crowley’s sleek mobile phone – Aziraphale had conceded that these comforts, along with most things, were simply a product of will rather than human advancement. Whether this indicated Crowley or the Bentley had a stronger will was as yet unknown.

“Hm.” Aziraphale squinted at the closest shop around the corner, where a busker had set up camp in front of what appeared to be a coffee establishment. The name on the sign indicated they might have many chocolate-flavored delights. “They could sell sweets in there.”

The Bentley adjusted his seat again, akin to being shoved in the shoulder.

“Ouch,” huffed Aziraphale, although this touch was not painful in the least. “Well, all right, then, dear. If I’m not meant to find a new temptation ….”

The car stereo cut on. Freddie’s voice and the harmonies now implored him:  _ Listen to the man, listen to the man! _

“What man? Oh!” Aziraphale took in the busker with new eyes, filtered out the usual hustle and bustle. Perhaps this person was imparting a message of some import. Or had the most beautiful voice in all London. They were doing that now, you know, putting talented classical musicians into Tube stations and street corners to see which passerby would stop to listen. It was all going on the  _ YewTubes. _ Even if it had nothing to do with trees. “Perhaps he’s going to start a flash hob.”

As Aziraphale listened, he saw no flashes nor accompanying hobs, simply the soothing sound of a guitar being strummed in time, soon joined by a voice. Aziraphale had not heard this particular arrangement before, but the song itself was rather lovely in its simplicity when paired with the plucky guitar melody, and its lyrics were stirring:  _ Sometimes you picture me, I’m walking too far ahead, you’re calling to me, I can’t hear what you have said… _

“It is rather nice,” he told the Bentley, who had stopped pushing at his upper back some time ago. “Although you know I don’t listen to bebop.”

The gust of amusement that came from the dashboard vents seemed rather pointed.

Aziraphale would have listened to the song for as long as it played, but was interrupted by several youths across the way, who had spotted him gazing out of the car window.

“Oi, stop starin’ at us, fuckin’ pervert!”

“No, no! I’m not  _ staring _ at  _ you _ . Merely trying to hear more of the newfangled song.”

One of the boys made a rather rude grabbing gesture at his waistband, mimicking Aziraphale’s passive plea. “ _ Newfangled song.  _ Christ, only my mum listens to that gay eighties shit!”

“Well,” Aziraphale tamped down a small frisson of irritation, thinking very suddenly of Harriet Dowling, who was likely similar in age to this young person’s mother, “perhaps if you phoned your mother more often...” 

“Fuckin’ ancient old pervert!”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something rather rude, but was prevented from doing so; with a snap of  _ someone’s  _ fingers, the street sweeper moved to the opposite side of the pavement and promptly drenched the three children in dirty water, leaving them to groan and shriek about getting their prized football jerseys dirty.

Aziraphale fought down the smirk that graced his lips as he rolled up his window and sat back, and the rest of the world was sealed away. 

Moments later, Crowley hopped back into the car with a satisfied sigh. “Right. Where d’you want to go next, angel?”

“Oh, I don’t know, dear boy,” demurred Aziraphale, still thinking about the song he’d overheard, and trying not to beam so brightly. “Perhaps the park?”

##

Staring at the rather staid  _ AOLSearch  _ page in front of what was admittedly a very dusty, yellowing box of a computer, Aziraphale typed in the words “eighties music” into the search bar, tapped the return key with one finger, and promptly clicked on the first link he thought might be useful, which boasted a running tally of all the number one hits per year during the entire decade. 

Of course, he could have used his heavenly powers to determine the name of the song, the artist, and the artist’s current residence as well as a plethora of other hidden facts.

But it wasn’t as  _ fun. _

This was how Aziraphale arrived in the doorway of a record shop called, auspiciously enough,  _ Sounds of the Universe.  _

“Yes, hello,” he announced to the clerk as he walked inside, shortly after the bell had stopped tinkling overhead. “I am here to purchase a  _ vinyl. _ ”

“Album name,” replied the young man behind the counter.

“Er. I, ah, don’t actually know the album it’s on. You see, I’m….”

“Right,” said the boy with a sigh, and made a gesture toward the back of the shop before he turned back to his mobile phone. “Look for it on the computer, if you want.”

The other clerk, a girl with shocking-pink hair, several striking floral tattoos, and wearing a black-and-white pinstriped frock that might not have been out of place in Regency-era Bath, were it not for the outrageously short length, slotted her coworker a pitying look before turning to Aziraphale. “Sorry. Ignore Reggie. What’re you looking for?”

“Well! I don’t mind telling you that what I am in search of is a rather  _ rare _ vinyl from nineteen eighty five. The artist:  _ Cyndi Lauper.  _ The song: Time After Time—”

“Uh,” said the girl, with a nonplussed expression. “You know you could just, like, buy it online. ‘S not that special.”

Aziraphale’s face must have dropped, for she let out a deep breath, and went to the sleek silver monitor.

“....but I’ll take a look,” she finished quickly.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale murmured, and decidedly did  _ not  _ perform any angelic miracles to ensure that the record might appear on her list. “It’s—well, it’s—for—it reminded me of someone I know. A friend.”

“Like a friend-friend or a  _ boy _ friend?” asked the girl as she scribbled something down on a slip of paper. Her bright pink fingernails flashed under the light. “‘Coz it’s kind of not a friend song. At all.”

“I-I-I suppose he could be called a _boyfriend_.” Aziraphale folded his hands in front of him, tried not to stare at the floor. “Er. We haven’t—the entire situation is, ah, rather complicated. But he is _very_ _cool_. I can assure you. He—this is probably not the best song I could use to, er, declare my intentions, but he’s got _so much_ Freddie Mercury already, and he never appreciates the Handel, and...”

“Oh,” said the girl, staring at him over her black-framed glasses. “ _ Oh.  _ So, you’re like, making him a mix? As a present?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale did not know precisely what a mix  _ was,  _ but he felt it was only polite to answer this query as confidently and succinctly as possible. “I am.”

##

_ Mindeth mine words, and prithee set aside the bounty of thy loom _

_ Whence thee angel calls for music sweete, thy will knowst th’ proper tune. _

Her mobile was ringing and the washer was chirping and Anathema was going to lose her  _ mind  _ if the noise didn’t stop right away.

“Come on, come on.” She dug frantically through the laundry basket, where the old sheets were waiting to get washed. “Be in there.”

The second her hand closed around the phone case, she gasped in delight, and lifted it to her ear. “Hello? Sorry, hang on a second.” She covered the mouthpiece with one cupped hand. “Newt! Can you come get the laundry?”

“Miss Device! I—forgive me, I thought you might be expecting my call—”

“Sorry, I am. I mean, I was, but it’s—” She wrestled with the sheets, then opened the washer, causing Newton to squeak in surprise as he crashed into the outstretched door. A tiny blue towel was now slung around his knees. “Newt! Jesus. Why are you  _ naked? _ ”

“What? All my Y-fronts were in here!” He saw the mobile in her hand and turned very red. “Oh, bollocks.”

Sighing as Newt shuffled back to the bedroom, Anathema put the phone back to her ear. “Hi, Aziraphale. What’s up?”

“Well,” said the angel — and suddenly Anathema knew what he was going to say, “erm. I fear I may be interrupting, but I merely wanted to ask your opinion on something rather minor. Well.” A gasping laugh. “Major and minor, really.”

“Oh, this is about music, isn’t it?” Anathema glanced down at the basket, saw a white tag with  _ Fruit of the Loom  _ sticking out from the pile, and sighed. Damn Agnes and her puns. “Like a specific song, or something?”

“How did you — no, never mind. Actually I was phoning to ask if you could tell me anything about  _ mixes. _ ”

“What are you talking about?”

For a wild few seconds, she pictured Aziraphale in his usual tartan and white, deejaying at some glowstick-filled gay bar while leather daddies in harnesses bopped around the soundboard, trying to get his number.

“Oh, forgive me, you need the context of the term, of course. If I were to say that I am  _ making someone a mix, _ what does it—er—remind me again how one might go about that?”

His voice got higher with every other word.

Anathema blinked. Agnes really hadn’t given her much to work with on this one. “So you’re, like, making a playlist for someone?” Definitely Crowley. “Or putting it on tape? Doesn’t C—I mean, you want them to play it in the car, right?”

_ “Yes,” _ sighed Aziraphale in a relieved way. “Precisely, dear. Thank you.”

“Well, I think making him a mix is a good idea,” said Anathema, although this sentence had not come out of her mouth since at least 2008, “but you might want to brush up on modern music first. I mean, do you even know any Bowie songs?”

“I do know who David Bowie is, dear girl,” replied Aziraphale stiffly. “He’s the young fellow who sang with Freddie Mercury, obviously.”

“Yeah, and he also did like nine thousand other things before and after.”

“Well, all right, then. Which song might you suggest?”

“What do you have so far?”

He told her the name of the first song as if he were revealing a precious artifact.

“Hm.” She wrinkled her nose, trying to keep the distaste out of her voice. “Maybe you heard the Iron and Wine cover.”

A long pause. “Cover?”

There was a soft  _ zap! _ and a yelping noise from the back bedroom. Newt had either figured out what was wrong with the hair dryer or been electrocuted by the alarm clock. Fifty-fifty odds on either at this point.

“Yeah, it’s when bands take the original song and do their own version. Just listen to it. He’ll like them, it’s that indie-folk-guitar angst.”

The soft groan that drifted into the kitchen was definitely not a happy one.

“Fitbit got me again,” Newt croaked out. “‘M dead now.”

More like sulking on his back on the carpet. Anathema could easily cheer him up from there, or get him shocked for other reasons. “Anyway, Aziraphale, I’ve got to go. Look up the band, okay? Bye!”

“Oh—well of course if you—”

She didn’t feel great about hanging up on the angel, exactly, but figured if nothing else, it would make him think of Crowley. And stop him from asking her opinions on a romantic playlist for his boyfriend.

##

“Oi, angel!” Crowley sauntered through the front door of the bookshop, a heavy black tote bag dangling from one arm and a bottle of red wine gripped in the other. “Got some reblochon and a bottle of that Beaujolais you like, thought we might—”

A wet hiccupped breath stopped the words in his throat. And then he heard the  _ sniff  _ from the back room, coupled with a tremulous voice. “Crowley?”

Crowley dropped the bag and the wine bottle, skidding through the stacks so quickly a train of fire might as well have blazed behind him. Fuck, his corporation’s heart didn’t even  _ need _ to beat, but it stuttered too fast in his chest as blind panic overwhelmed him. 

_ He’s hurt, he’s hurt, he’s hurt, who in the name of  _ Someone _ hurt  _ his angel _ , they were going to get torn limb from— _

“Aziraphale?”

Another muffled sob; Crowley vaulted through the last doorway, splintered the crown molding, and broke a framed picture of Paradise Lost in the process. 

“Aziraphale!”

“Here.” Aziraphale was sitting in his usual armchair, only he looked miserable, all blotchy pink cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. Satan below, Crowley was going to wring someone’s neck with his bare hands. “‘M sorry, dear boy. Wasn’t expecting t-to see you, that’s all.”

“Angel.” Crowley flung himself down next to Aziraphale’s chair, just barely restraining himself from drawing Aziraphale into his arms or cupping his round face in both hands. He settled for grabbing Aziraphale’s shoulders instead. “You’re crying?”

“Yes,” breathed Aziraphale. His lower lip was wobbling in a way Crowley hadn’t seen since at least the bandstand. “Oh. It’s r-really nothing, dear boy.”

“Really isn’t.” With a sigh, Crowley lifted one hand to Aziraphale’s soft cheek, brushed a path through the glimmering tracks of water before glancing right. A newer book sat face-down on the end table. “Come on, angel. Favorite character kick off too early?”

Aziraphale laughed; two quick tears dropped from the roots of his blonde lashes. His eyes looked Aegean-blue from this angle. “No.”

“Some idiot actually manage to buy a fourth edition?”

_ “No.” _

Crowley wanted to look the angel in the eyes, brush stubborn blonde curls out of his eyes, but he was also terrified of the answer this next question might get. “Did anyone—” he raised his eyebrows meaningfully upwards “—show up for a surprise chat?”

“No.” Sighing, Aziraphale took Crowley’s wrist in both hands, and lowered it until it lay over one of his knees. “Nothing like that. I’ve just been—listening to music.” A wet sniff. “And it was very beautiful, but very sad. As you see.”

Releasing Crowley’s wrist, he gestured to his face with a watery smile.

_ “Aughhhhhhh.”  _ Grimacing, Crowley made a show of slumping over the armrest to hide his relief, chest pressed into several cushion seams and one knee nudging at Aziraphale’s coattail. “Satan’s teeth, angel, you can’t just  _ go around crying  _ like that, I thought someone’d had a real go at you, and instead you were probably listening to  _ stupid bloody Water Music  _ for the fourteen trillionth  _ orchestral performance. _ ”

From this angle, he could smell something strange — it was not the usual bookshop parchment and paper-and-glue-and-vellum scent, or even l’eau d’angel, which was bright and mellow — it was different. Darker. Plastickier. Was that a word? Plastickier.

“Crowley, dear.” Aziraphale sounded much calmer now, but there was a mischievous note to his voice the demon didn’t trust. “What on earth are you doing down there?”

“Ssssmelling,” said Crowley, and flicked his tongue out to taste the air. Still very plasticky. But somehow not. Like wax or jewelry polish or something weird. Had the angel actually  _ dusted  _ in here? No, the cleaning wasn’t the point; the point was — well, the point  _ was  _ — “What  _ is _ that?”

There hadn’t been a  _ new _ smell in the bookshop for at least a few decades — least, if you didn’t count takeaway food or miracled-up desserts.

“I will assume,” came the soft retort, as the angel patted the back of Crowley’s outstretched knee with one hand, “that this is not a comment on my corporation, and pertains to something completely different.”

“‘Ssss completely different, obviously! What the heaven have you got stored back there anyway, why does it taste all—ngk!” 

Aziraphale poked him in the ribs before Crowley could finish the sentence, sending him yelping into the floor, legs over trunk, like a very sophisticated and  _ cool _ being and  _ not  _ like a demon who’d just been  _ bloody tickled _ by an angelic being.

Said angelic being was beaming as he leaned over the armrest to peer down at Crowley, wide grin brightening his pink-cheeked face. “Sorry, darling. Couldn’t resist.”

Crowley would’ve come up with a retort for that, but he was too busy pretending not to blush at the way Aziraphale said the word  _ darling,  _ and now he was imagining all sorts of other ways Aziraphale could tease him from this position if Aziraphale hadn’t been a Someone-blessed angel, so the rest of his afternoon was pretty much useless.

##

“And I started listening, and oh, if you haven’t heard it yet, you absolutely  _ must  _ do, dear girl, it’s just  _ perfect _ . Here you are.” Aziraphale pulled the small CD from his pocket and slipped it into the disc player. The Bentley made a chirping noise. “Let’s see how you like it, hm?

After a few moments, a beautiful, bright assortment of strings filled the cabin.

Aziraphale wiggled in his seat with a happy sigh. He’d been so proud to have bought this album on-line, without even a nudge by Violet-from-the-record-shop. “Doesn’t the middle bit remind you of Grieg’s concerto in A minor, dear? Or perhaps Vivaldi’s concerto for two violins? Well, not completely, but at least—”

The driver’s side door was flung open; the CD player skipped forward a track and Crowley set the car in motion before the angel could get out another word. They’d barely sped past Piccadilly Circus when Crowley made a puzzled noise, and glanced down at the dashboard.

“What’s this?”

Aziraphale pretended to be very interested in what was happening outside his window. “Hm?”

“The music,” said Crowley. “Did you choose this, angel?”

“Oh, I—don’t pay attention to bebop, dear boy, you know that.”

“Did  _ you  _ choose this?” Crowley repeated, although given the way his voice had softened, and the way both thumbs now stroked over the leather steering wheel, it was apparent he was talking to the car, and not to Aziraphale himself.

Not that Aziraphale was jealous of a car. That would be silly, and not at all logical.

Whatever the Bentley did in response seemed to please Crowley, because he merely sat back in his seat and resumed the usual frenetic driving pace, tapping his hands against the wheel and humming a bit as they went.

“Well, whatever she picked, it’s rather interesting,” offered Aziraphale as an elegant male voice began to count down from ten.

“Yeah,” said Crowley with a little smile. “‘S all right, I s’pose.”

##

“The point is the  _ crying _ ,” Crowley muttered to himself as he sauntered down a Soho side street a few days later, peering suspiciously into the window of yet another Pret, where two people were fist-fighting over the last rocket and crayfish sandwich. Aziraphale’s crumpled, tearful face had itched at his conscience ever since Crowley had picked him up from the bookshop. “Doesn’t usually get like that over bloody Brahms, does he?”

His mind pinwheeled through a few scenarios as he passed storefront after storefront: stupid bloody Gabriel or one of the other pompous gits had  _ done something _ , the Ritz was closing, the French had fucked up a perfectly good crepe by adding—

And then he caught it—the same smell he’d noticed in the bookshop the other day. Dark and shiny and so much  _ tighter  _ than the books, but with that same grainy-fragile-paper scent clinging to them. Vinyls. Records.

Records?!

Wrinkling his nose, suddenly sensing the telltale cinnamon-and-sugar flavor permeating the air, Crowley popped into three different secondhand vinyl stores within a two-block radius before he found himself staring into the display of a place called  _ Sounds of the Universe. _

Inside, Aziraphale stood at the till counter, wiggling with barely-contained excitement as he showed some pink-haired girl in a Beetlejuice dress a stack of records that was higher than their heads. They were laughing and talking together as if they’d known each other all their lives.

“What,” huffed Crowley to the nearest potted plant, gawping through the window in an extremely dignified way, and not like a sentient trap for a certain Prince of Hell’s pets.  _ “What?! Why—?” _

“You talking to me or yourself, there, mate?” came a voice from behind him; Crowley whirled around and saw a disaffected blonde man leaning against the doorframe. He probably thought he looked wicked. To Crowley it was like watching that bit in  _ Home Alone  _ where Macaulay Culkin pretended to be an adult. 

(Warlock had always loved that movie. If watching it nine hundred times every Christmas meant the handsy idiot from the car service and/or dear Brother Francis had been boffed in the head by several strung-up cardboard cutouts of Robert Pattinson in the process, Nanny Ashtoreth turned an innocent eye.)

“Nah. Just, ah, saw someone I knew. There.” Crowley jabbed a hand at Aziraphale, who was now exiting the shop with a small container the size of a dress shirt box. “Hiya, angel.”

Aziraphale was staring at Crowley in visible horror, as if he’d just sprouted horns and a forked tail. “Do excuse me, Reggie. This is, ah, a long-time friend of mine. Anthony.”

“Anthony,” said Reggie, and extended his hand. “Cool name.”

“Indubitably!” Aziraphale was babbling, his blue eyes shot through with surprise. “The coolest, if you’d believe it. Even has a J in it. Anyway, I-I was merely talking to Violet about—well, music books, Cr—Anthony. Books about musicians. Very rare, dull biographies. You’d find them very boring, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, coz I don’t read,” was all Crowley said, shrugging.

Reggie kept eyeing Aziraphale in a way Crowley didn’t like, as if he were about to step into the angel’s personal space, or grab up that box from his hands. Crowley narrowed his eyes behind his glasses, tried to seem cool and disaffected. 

_ Nobody stares at my angel but  _ me _ , got it? _

“Anyway,” Aziraphale put the box down onto the concrete, and discreetly miracled it away with a slight, gasping laugh, “what—brings you to this part of town?”

Uh.

“Usual stuff. Kicking puppies. Causing trouble.” Crowley tossed a long-suffering glance at Reggie over the top of his sunglasses. That kid was now eyeing Aziraphale in a way Crowley didn’t like one  _ bit,  _ like the angel had some fascinating secret. Like the way  _ Crowley  _ looked at him. “Tempt you to an afternoon delight, angel?”

_ Bollocks!  _ He hadn’t meant to say that; the invitation was supposed to come off much more casual. All he wanted was to ask the angel for a quick coffee. 

He was going to blame that Someone-damned 8-track display in the window for this, or maybe the snacks ad he’d got that commendation for a few years back. Stupid fucking crisps jingle. Lot of people had committed petty crimes over that one.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to get the reference, just pursed his lips in a thoughtful way. “Must say, I could use a bit of dessert.”

“Great. Let’s go shuffle off this mortal coil,” said Crowley, linking his elbow through the angel’s in a way that was not possessive and overdone at all. Reggie looked miserable with jealousy. Served that little snot-nosed bastard right. “Goodnight, Reggie.”

“Dear boy, you don’t even _like_ _Hamlet_ ,” protested Aziraphale as they walked off; or rather, as Crowley marched them in the opposite direction of wherever Reggie existed on this corporeal plane. He could feel the kid’s eyes on a very specific part of Aziraphale and was gnashing his teeth to keep from hissing.

WHAT. THE FUCK.

##

“Because he doesn’t even _like bebop,_ for one thing, and for another, he _still._ _calls it. be-bop._ ” Crowley misted the delphinium twice more to prove a point, glaring down at the leaves through his shades so it didn’t get any stupid ideas about wilting. “Anything written after bloody Brahms and it’s all, _ooh, what’s this newfangled modern sound, never heard a clavier sound so thoroughly impassioned before._ ”

The delphinium didn’t answer, just stretched itself a bit higher in its pot.

“Why, Crowley, you’re being awfully cruel. I shall have you know that in point of fact, John Philip Sousa was considered the  _ Skillets  _ of his day,” Crowley mocked as he stepped past it, now frowning at the row of foxgloves that trembled behind the delphinium. “Did  _ you _ know they called him the American March King? How jolly entertaining his practice sessions must have been. You know, I often see a number of brass musicians practicing in the street near the shop; they’re not quite as exciting as a military band, but they are _ very good. _ ”

He snipped a brown-ish leaf off one of the foxgloves, snarling down at it for a long moment in case it got any funny ideas about wilting again.

“Don’t know why he’d want to pick up a bunch of vinyls, anyway,” Crowley told the next few plants—mostly white snakeroot. He’d bought the first one from a shop that had been ready to toss out the remainders. “Because he doesn’t  _ listen to music.  _ That’ssss not my angel. He’s a book being, isn’t he? Give him access to the bloody Library of Alexandria and you can forget seeing him for a whole millennia, let alone talking to him. Or eating with him.  _ Records.”  _ He gave the snakeroot blossoms a sneer. “What would an angel possibly want to do with a bunch of bloody records?”

Next to the snakeroot, a nightshade cutting that had been added to the windowsill less than a week ago curled one of its tallest leaves into a question mark, as if to point out that Crowley could ask the angel this question flat-out instead of posing it to all of them, as they were plants and Enochian was sometimes difficult for them to understand and—most important of all—they weren’t exactly sure what music even  _ was _ . Was it the odd tinny vibrations from the black device in his pocket? Or the sharper ones that came from the white box by the front door?

_ Oh, that one’s too smart for its own good.  _

In the end, Crowley seethed about records for nearly twenty more minutes before taking the little nightshade out to the roof garden plot—and not, as he’d so loudly claimed to the group left behind in his flat, to toss it into an enormous wood chipper he had rented from a Christmas tree lot.

The nightshade was relieved to be going back to an outdoor garden, even as it got transplanted into a new pot next to lots of plants it had never met. 

Crowley remained annoyed for the rest of the evening.

Maybe he should ask the angel about this vinyls business. It wasn’t as if they stopped developing interests while they lived down here. That had been how Crowley discovered lipstick. And how Aziraphale discovered—shudder—sleight-of-hand magic. But they’d always  _ told each other  _ about that sort of thing before now. And they’d always been willing to share in new interests together, or at least shared the good ones. (Crowley would rather fall into one of the Duke of Hell’s pits than take up sleight-of-hand magic, after all.) Did the sudden interest in music mean that the angel was going to start  _ developing other interests  _ without him? Was it an effort to change the Arrangement and keep Crowley from  _ going too fast  _ again?

Stupid bloody nightshade and its stupid bloody mouthing off.

##

Aziraphale was enjoying a fresh cup of tea, a couple of chocolate biscuits, and was re-reading a rather gripping Agatha Christie novel when his pleasant interlude was interrupted by the sulfuric roar of a certain demon as he teleported into the front room.

Drily, Aziraphale brushed a few errant flakes of ash from the page of his book. “Not driving the Bentley tonight?”

“I don’t always,” said Crowley, who did not come to perch on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair as he usually did. Usually he would be pretending to read over the angel’s shoulder while making mocking faces at the reading material in question. Tonight, he slithered belly-down onto the sofa before banishing his shoes to the front door. “Nnnngh.”

“Crowley, dear, are you quite sure you’re all right?” A possible answer to this ennui struck Aziraphale as he put his book aside. “Is this because you would like to, ah—I mean, would you prefer to sleep for a little while?”

“No,” huffed Crowley, although he did not lift his head from where he’d buried it in the very shabby throw pillow.

“Well, do forgive me for saying so, dear, but you seem a bit at loose ends this evening.” Another thought occurred to Aziraphale. “Haven’t had any recent  _ visits _ from any of your set, have you?”

“Nahhh.” Crowley rolled over, now holding the pillow close to his chest. His hands fiddled idly over the old embroidery, walking stitch to stitch as if he could discern the pattern by touch alone. “Nothing like that, angel. I’d tell you if there was.”

But he was upset. Aziraphale would have been able to tell from the speech patterns alone, if nothing else. Why was he upset? Had some salacious blackguard said something to him? Was his flat all right? Were the plants wilting?

“Angel, for Ssssomeone’s sake, you have  _ got  _ to stop with all the questions.” Crowley tore his gaze away from the back of the sofa for only the briefest of moments, leveling Aziraphale with a raised eyebrow. It was only then that Aziraphale realized he’d spoken all of those questions aloud. “Can’t I just lie on your sofa for a few minutes without going through the bloody Inquisition?”

“It is not  _ the Inquisition,  _ Crowley. I was simply… being inquisitive, given the situation.”

Crowley gave a non-committal grunt. “Clearly.”

“Oh, now.” Aziraphale felt a stab of annoyance at such churlishness. “What on earth is that noise supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t make a noise.”

“You most certainly did. You—absolutely did.”

“Come on, angel, if I was going to make  _ any bloody noise  _ about your sudden bout of  _ inquisitiveness _ , I’d’ve done it in the middle of the pavement earlier this week, when you vanished that box of vinyls right under my nose.”

“When I—oh!” Aziraphale could not help scoffing. “You terrible boy. You didn’t tell me you’d seen anything.”

“How could I have missed that? Big box of records probably weighed as much as you do. I’d have to be an idiot to keep from tripping over them.” 

Now sitting very stiffly in his chair, Aziraphale put his book to one side. The remnants of the biscuits he had so enjoyed earlier now made his mouth taste faintly of sawdust. “I see.”

Toying with one of the tassels on the throw pillow, Crowley had likely missed the initial look of horror that dawned on Aziraphale’s face. But he clearly did not miss the icy tone in Aziraphale’s voice, and glanced up in alarm before leaping into a seated position.

“Oh,  _ shit,  _ angel, you don’t think I—I didn’t mean it that way at all, you know. Just meant it was a long box. Big one. A stupid big box the size of a human. Human-height. Hard to miss. Worse to carry. I wasn’t trying to—I’d’ve never—”

He did look stricken; his golden eyes flashed behind his glasses in a manner which was too stunned to be insincere. Aziraphale tried to take comfort in this much. “Of course not.”

They exchanged small, forced smiles, but this  _ detenté  _ did not last.

“Just don’t understand why you’re so interested in vinyls all of the sudden,” the demon muttered to the pillow which was now face-up in his lap. He plucked at a tassel again.

“Oh, honestly. Angels are  _ ethereal beings,  _ you know. We’re allowed to develop matters of personal taste, even if we aren’t always encouraged to broadcast them.”

“That why your lot are always up there yowling about _Edelweiss,_ then? Is our lady of Ssssalzburg to _your_ personal taste, angel?”

Aziraphale let out a huff. “Now you’re simply being childish.”

Never to be undone, Crowley lowered his voice to a cutting, sibilant whisper. “ _ Sssssoft and whiiiite... _ ”

“I refuse to entertain that sort of insidious humour when you’re like this.”

“ _ Ag-ed friiiight…” _

“Crowley, I mean it.”

_ “She looks happy to beat meeee….” _

“That isn’t how the song goes, anyway!” Aziraphale was on his feet before he could think. “And will you please stop singing?”

“Oh, very sorry,  _ angel,  _ didn’t realize my singing voice was so  _ absolutely abhorrent  _ to your holy ears.” Crowley made a face, then tossed the pillow to one side. “The thing is—the thing is! You’ve never, not once in your  _ life,  _ not since I met you on a wall in a damn Garden—you’ve never really given a damn about any piece of music except to say  _ oh, how nice, the humans’ve done something rather interesting with a Spanish guitar!” _

“That isn’t true,” Aziraphale protested, although it was, and it was rather unfair to be pinned so accurately and viciously.

_“_ No, you’re right, I’m not giving you enough credit, obviously. Maybe you’d say _bless that poor boy for trying something new!_ instead of _augh, I don’t care for that song at all, what sort of be-bop is he playing at?_ Of course you haven’t spent six thousand years on the earth not-caring about ninety-nine percent of music, because why would you? Aziraphale has _PLENTY_ of music. He’s got the works of John Philip Sousa, and Handel, and maybe Mozart, if he’s feeling a bit ssssaucy! For Sssomeone’s sake, angel, you don’t even care that we only listen to _one album_ over and over again, every time we so much as pop round the city for a quick temptation!”

“I really think you’re being very un—”

“And now—now!—you’re carrying boxes of vinyls out of shops and swapping song recommendations with  _ my Bentley _ —mine,  _ of all the bloody beings in the bloody universe!  _ And you didn’t even bother to tell me that you were taking an interest in music!”

“Why would I?”

“Oh ho.” Crowley’s lip curled in a visible sneer. “Why would you, indeed. What’s a nassssty little demon like me doing, liking all this heathen noise in the firssssst place—”

“Stop speaking over me, damn it!” Aziraphale’s corporation was feeling very distressed, now; he could feel water prickling at his eyes and perspiration misting on the back of his neck. His hands were trembling; he jammed them into his pockets to keep them hidden. “Obviously I wouldn’t tell you a word about it if I thought you were going to sit there on my sofa and taunt me, in-instead of asking why I’ve done it in the first place.”

“Well, why are you doing it, then?”

“And perhaps this is all some silly flight of fancy to you. Look at the silly, stupid angel with his silly, stupid music that  _ everyone  _ already hears. But I will have you know I have been  _ making an effort  _ to learn about the subject, Crowley, and this—this—awful  _ derisiveness  _ will not keep me from pursuing that end, whatever else you may think of me.”

“Aughhh. Angel, come on. I’m really not—”

“I have been forced to develop interests without you before.” He clenched trembling hands into fists, now. “And I shall do so again. If you must know, I’ve taken up several solitary interests throughout the years. One never knows when you’re going to tire of me. So. Got to have activities to keep occupied.”

“Tire of you?” Crowley looked as startled as if Aziraphale had struck him. “You know that’s not the reason, angel. Tell me it isn’t.”

“You’d prefer me to  _ lie _ ?”

“Angel. Tell me the truth.”

“How can I?” Aziraphale demanded. “I was trying to _do something_ _nice_ _for you_ , Crowley, and I was even, foolishly, attempting to make it a surprise, but of course you’d have to come—sailing in and wrecking the entire enterprise before I could even get started!”

“Oh.” Crowley’s voice had lost the passion it held even a moment ago, had dwindled to something flat and awful. “Well. You know how I feel about  _ nice _ .” Stiffly, he got up from the sofa and made his way to the door, barely even sauntering as he walked. It was like watching a particularly ancient human trying to push past a bad case of rheumatism: awkward and hobbling and unnatural. “Don’t let me  _ wreck  _ your evening any longer, then _.” _

“Crowley, you know I didn’t— _ fuck! _ ”

The demon slammed the door shut by hand as he left. 

##

There was so much sun here!

_ Solanum pseudocapsicum  _ stretched small dark green leaves toward the blue sky, grateful for the radiating warmth that washed through every leaf and stem and stamen, all the way down to the end of each root. It did not know that its name was  _ solanum pseudocapsicum  _ any more than a child knows to name themselves as part of  _ homo sapiens.  _ In fact, no person could tell you this plant’s true name, as  _ solanum pseudocapsicum  _ was not quite sure what a name was, and whether it had one which distinguished it from all the other  _ solanum pseudocapsicum  _ varietals in the world. All it knew was that it liked its surroundings very much. The sun was warm—but not too warm!—its leaves were the perfect kind of misty, warding off dryness from the wind and spider-mites. Plus the surrounding plants in its row were not demanding or aggressive.

Humming to the other plants about the comfortable sun,  _ solanum pseudocapsicum  _ was about to turn its attention to water when a flap of wings and a slight noise just beyond the growing surface made its leaves perk up in interest. Was it the figure in black? Water would come soon!

“Oh,” said an unfamiliar voice, warm and soft, “well. Terribly sorry to disturb you all, only I, ah, heard your lovely music. Or rather, your talking to each other about water. And I was feeling rather silly, pacing alone by the front doors...”

The being came closer: close enough for the plant to detect notes of dry pulp and dark fruit mixed with oak wafting from his pale trunk. It was the same smell that clung to the figure in black! But sharper and more concentrated.

_ Are you a bird? _ it asked the white figure politely.  _ Your feathers are very large. _

“My goodness. Hello. You’re quite sociable.”

_ ….Sociable? _

“Merely that you like to talk to people. Or people-shaped creatures. Though I’m not sure how much talking you’re able to get up to with Crowley.” A small puff of air swayed the plant’s upper tendrils. It made a curious noise as the not-a-bird continued, “Who is Crowley? Oh! Of course. Probably didn’t get to introduce yourself properly whilst he was procuring you from… wherever you’re from. Regardless, Crowley is the being who takes care of you. Or rather, that is his name—what he calls himself. Anthony Crowley. Technically it also has a J in it. He is a demon.”

Crowley. _Thick-heat-shimmering-in-evening._ _The figure in black!_

“Yes.” The not-a-bird shifted his wings, hiding them behind his form. “And I’m Aziraphale. Hello. Er— _ hello  _ is what you say to human-shaped things, when you meet.”

The plant was very impressed by this news.  _ Hello, Aziraphale. _

“Hello again. What may I call you?”

Eagerly, the plant told him as much as it knew, very little of which was translatable from its very rudimentary Enochian into Greek, Latin, French, or English. But Aziraphale hummed in a way that only intensified the  _ warm-rain-in-bright-summer  _ feeling it carried close to its body _ ,  _ and seemed to understand.

“Well, that is lovely. Very pleased to meet you all.” Still humming, the being called Aziraphale moved closer to the rest of the pots;  _ solanum pseudocapsicum  _ did not need mechanoreceptors to understand that the other plants were very excited to feel  _ warm-rain-in-bright-summer  _ so early in the year _.  _ They all hummed back in audible delight, causing a happy discordant rumble to wash over their leaves.

“That,” Aziraphale told them, as a  _ Rhododendron simsii  _ suddenly sprouted large white blossoms four months ahead of schedule, “is precisely the tune I thought I heard before. Reminds me of Bach’s Canzona in D minor, from the  Bach-Werke- Verzeichnis.”

_Is that… the feeling you call_ music? ventured _solanum pseudocapsicum,_ remembering something the being Crowley had told it not more than four suns ago. 

“Well, yes.” The  _ warm-rain  _ feeling dissipated, leaving only the sunshine behind. “It is a piece of music. And a very pretty one. Goodness me. Have you never felt the vibrations of human music? Any of it?”

_ Uncertain,  _ offered  _ solanum pseudocapsicum. The ivy at the end of our row has been here the longest; their roots are very thick and their vines are very large. I was just moved from the cold dark place with the tinny white box. _

“Ah. Naturally. Well, your friend at the end says he once heard something very interesting in… what may have been a biker bar by a Tube stop? Hmph. Believe that’s either a train noise or a guitar noise they’re imitating. Can’t quite tell, sorry. But either way, you ought to hear just a little. I was planning to surprise Crowley with a general mix of songs he might enjoy hearing, but perhaps it… well. Never mind that. Would you mind if I stayed with you for a little longer?” 

_ You make the air calm and my food nourishingly bright,  _ said  _ solanum psuedocapsicum,  _ which was a neurobiological and extremely roundabout way of saying yes.

##

“Stupid bloody traffic.” Crowley’s hands curled around the steering wheel as he swerved to avoid yet another bus, a dog that had gone off-lead, and a rogue manhole cover that had rolled its way downhill from Victoria Station. It had been funny to watch the human try to chase it until the thing picked up speed, and then he’d had to do a bit of demonic trickery to keep someone from getting hurt. “Stupid bloody angel.”

The Bentley shoved him in the side with one armrest.

“Oi!” Crowley jabbed at the on button for the radio. Just as it jolted to life, the car turned it off again. “Rude! You’re  _ really  _ gonna make me drive through central London without at least one round of  _ Under Pressure _ ?”

_ Don’t be facetious. _

“Course I’m facetious. Demon, obviously!” Crowley jabbed at the on button again. No sooner did Freddie belt out  _ Don’t! stop! me! now!  _ than the Bentley ejected the CD with so much force that it nearly sliced through the back seat.

“Oh, come on!” howled Crowley, zigzagging around four stopped cars and a naff-looking motorbike for good measure. The old CD stayed suspended in the air until he snapped his fingers downward and sent it flopping to the floor. “What’s the matter with you?”

_ Listen to this one. _

The glove compartment door fell open, revealing an unlabeled silver disc just  _ brimming  _ with angelic magic. Crowley was so shocked to find an object this holy was living inside his car that he swerved to a stop in the nearest parking space, terrifying a nearby priest who was walking back to the church office from lunch. Hmph. Served the man too bloody right for stealing. Normally, Crowley would have been all over  _ that _ , but today he ignored the priest-thief entirely, gaping at the open glove compartment.

“What in  _ Ssssomeone’s name _ is that?!”

_ It’s for you,  _ replied the Bentley.  _ Aziraphale made it. _

“Come off it. He wouldn’t even know what a  _ compact disc  _ is. And in case you weren’t aware, I don’t ask the angel for anything. Ever.”

If the Bentley had been human, Crowley was sure it would have rolled its eyes, as he heard the front headlights squeaking.

“I absolutely don’t!” A loud, long sigh. “Especially not after last night.”

_ You’re sulking again. _

“Nnngh. How long has this even been in here?” Reaching out, Crowley tapped the face of the CD with one careful fingertip before relaxing. It was safe to touch, then. Nothing truly blessed or holy at all. Just sparkling with goodness and light and all those other disgusting things Crowley felt emanating from the angel on a regular basis. Or at least at a low-level hum, considering the biscuit tin that had been rattling around the backseat since the late sixties. “Shouldn’t you have turned this into Beethoven’s  _ Bohemian Rhapsody  _ by now?”

_ Aziraphale asked me not to. _

“Oh, well if  _ Aziraphale  _ asks you, then—then of course you’ll listen to him. Not to the terrifying hellfiend who actually drives you and talks to you and doesn’t get damn Victoria sponge crumbs all down your bloody upholstery!”

_ Crowley,  _ said the Bentley, rather sternly for a sentient car whose livelihood depended on a single driver,  _ listen. _

“Fine,” snapped Crowley, and snapped his fingers again. The CD jumped up from the open compartment and fed itself into the player, with a tinkling noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “One. Song.”

The Bentley jostled his seat.

“All right! Maybe two, if it’s not completely hideous.” Crowley took his foot off the brake; the car shifted into park by itself as he folded his arms across his chest, and slithered backwards into the leather seat, slouching. “But if I have to sit here and listen to the sodding ssssymphonies, or  _ worssse,  _ the absolute nightmare from the bloody  _ Ssssound of _ ….”

With a faint click, the first track began to play; the Bentley made a noise that sounded like a sigh, and let its engine rumble into a soft, low purr.

At once, the car filled with the sounds of calloused fingers plucking low notes—the slick slide of hands across guitar strings—a low, comforting tenor.

_ Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick and think of you… _

Crowley’s entire body tensed, he made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and stayed frozen in his seat for a miniature eternity—nearly four minutes—until the fingerplucked notes faded into nothing.

“But that’ssss….a love song.” His brain, still misfiring, had latched onto this single piece of information. Not the lyrics, not the singer, just this absurd, plain fact. It was a heartfelt acoustic cover based on supremely cheesy 80s pop, and therefore, a love song. “He put a love song on it?”

Why would the angel make him anything with a love song? Aziraphale would never put a love song on a sodding  _ mix CD meant just for Crowley _ , because that would be...

The Bentley made a noise that anyone else would have characterized as  _ smug  _ as the guitar faded out, only to be replaced by a jaunty piano trill.  _ Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars… _

“Oh, ssssweet  _ Lord, _ ” hissed Crowley, flushing all the way down his collar as the lyric spooled out into the air. ( _ In other words, darling, kiss me.)  _ “I-I did—I  _ am _ hearing it right, aren’t I? Not gone completely mental? Discorporated in a ditch somewhere? Trapped in a hellpit of a certain archangel’s making?  _ Nnngh. _ Because good ol’ Frankie’s just said…  _ nngh _ , for God’s sssssake!”

_ I know,  _ replied the Bentley, as gently as if they were talking about Warlock.

“Gotta talk to him.” Crowley’s body alternated between too hot and too cold, and a tight hopeful feeling had begun bubbling up in his chest. “Fuck. Oh, fuck. Where’s the—?” His hands scrabbled uselessly at the wheel. “Can you just—?”

_ Of course. _

Without another word, the Bentley started her engine and sailed out into traffic as if she was the one who did the driving every day.

##

Sighing, Aziraphale levitated another string of red lanterns to the pergola he’d created a scant fifteen minutes ago. No telling where Crowley had gone off to, but he’d decided to create a pleasant little roof corner in the meantime. The plants’ growing table, the various rigs of shades and tarps surrounding it, and the general area stayed undisturbed. But a few feet beyond that, in the corner of the rooftop garden where there had previously been a couple of rusted chairs and a demonic-feeling gardening box full of useful tools, there now stood a beautiful wooden pergola. 

Framed by airy silks and hanging lanterns, with a comfortable rug spread beneath the lot—as well as a mountain of inviting cushions and a couple of low tables—it was the sort of place Crowley would declare  _ awful  _ and  _ cliché  _ before lounging down into the pillows in a wriggly, delighted fashion. Perhaps he would even like to look at the stars, all the way up here. Or to have a glass of wine whilst gazing out at the city at the end of a long, exciting day.

“Dear me.” Aziraphale turned a mournful look at the luxurious-yet-empty arrangement, and turned down the Victrola he’d conjured up nearly a half hour ago with a flick of his wrist. “Seem to have gone a bit overboard.”

The nightshade plant, who now boasted a bushel of star-shaped flowers alongside its many leaves, as well as a host of ripe, if inedible, orange berries, seemed to agree with him. Several of its largest branches wafted gently in the breeze.

“Oh. I’m soft,” he murmured, mainly to himself, but also for the benefit of Crowley’s plants, so they would understand why their caretaker would be so perennially cross over the next few weeks. Or at turns absent and despondent. “And I hope he won’t banish your little corner as soon as look at it.”

Crowley was prone to believing he deserved only stiff, stern, hellish things, after all.

“You’ll take care of him for me, won’t you, dear ones? Only… I’m not certain when I’ll be back to visit next.”

The plants sounded alarmed, if Aziraphale was translating their Enochian correctly.

“No. He may decide to sleep for quite a long time, if past events are any indication.”

It was how Crowley had reacted the last time they had bitterly fought.

Just as the nightshade plant grew another cluster of glossy berries, the door to the stairs flew open, revealing a Crowley who wore his dramatics around his corporeal form like the ankle-length leather trenchcoat he’d favored in the early 1970s. Stalking past the plants and up to Aziraphale, he appeared to be ready to cause a great fracas. Only it was not until he reached Aziraphale and reached out with two trembling hands that the angel realized something rather important. Crowley was not trembling with fury. He was not going to push Aziraphale against the nearest support beam of the wooden pergola and hiss and growl. (Which was a pity in itself, but for utterly different reasons.) His face was pinched and his fingers quivered against Aziraphale’s shirtsleeves.

“There, ah.” Throat working as he spoke, Crowley glanced down at a spot on the concrete. “Was a CD in my car. From you.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispered.

“And it—it had—love songs?—on it. I mean. Lot of love songs. Apparently there were around four thousand of ‘em. So a good bit of the disc might be just regular old driving tunes. Salieri’s Ssssomebody to Love. Only I haven’t heard the other three thousand nine-hundred and eighty yet, so I couldn’t tell you what they all are.”

Tears rushed into Aziraphale’s eyes, as his face bloomed hot. “Oh, dear boy, I only—”

“And, you see, the thing is—the thing is…” Crowley glanced up from the concrete; Aziraphale was stunned to see he was also close to tears. “Angels don’t normally  _ do  _ music, right? I mean, Heaven, let me count the ways in which they’re bad at it.” A raw, barked laugh. “And you don’t do music, either. Not really. Not  _ my  _ angel.”

“Crowley—” 

Crowley pursed his mouth, made an affirmative noise to show that he’d heard, and looked away again. “ _ My  _ angel can’t tell a Halsey song from a damned Herman’s Hermits piece. Which is all right. Likes his beautiful books more than any old scrap of vinyl in the world, doesn’t he? But he didn’t put a big heap of sonnets in my car. Didn’t make me sit through  _ Romeo and Juliet _ —”

“You hate it when Mercutio dies.”

“—didn’t drag me on a big showy gondola ride along a Venetian canal.”

“Never stopped complaining about the Parisian boat tour of nineteen ninety. How would I have ever gotten you on another water transportation unit?”

“ _ My _ angel,” and here, Crowley faltered, his thumbs brushing over Aziraphale’s wrists, “Aziraphale, you…”

“Yes?” Aziraphale was watching Crowley so closely he thought he might discorporate from the power of concentration alone.

Crowley glanced up. Gnawed at the inside of his cheek.  _ “Why?” _

There were so many possible answers to that question, and a host of potential variations within it. Everything from  _ why now  _ to  _ why music  _ or even  _ why would you care about me, don’t you  _ understand _ that I’m a demon? Aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you going to run? _

Letting out a breath, a fierce blush now coloring his cheeks, Aziraphale decided to answer in the most straightforward way possible, as if Crowley had merely asked  _ why a CD?  _ and left it at that.

“Because I, ah. Imagined you singing some of them. Most of them. All of them.”

Crowley’s gold eyes widened.

“Well. The, ah, first track in particular. When I first heard it, it was as if… I pictured you so clearly in my mind, dearest. And this is probably very silly of me, but I  _ enjoyed _ hearing you say all those lovely things to me. Imagining that I might say them back to you in—”

Surging forward with a ragged noise, Crowley embraced him, his hands moving to clutch at the shoulders of Aziraphale’s jacket as he tucked his face into Aziraphale’s collar.  _ “Angel.” _

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale laughed slightly as he shifted in Crowley’s arms. His limbs were jittery and his chest was taut with nerves. They had never embraced this way before, not even on the night of the almost-Apocalypse. Crowley’s heart beat loud as thunder against Aziraphale’s chest and his sweet, warm breath ghosted along one side of his neck. “My dear Crowley. I-I suppose I ought to have told you sooner.”

They stood like this for several moments, merely holding each other, swaying very slightly as the evening wind stirred through the nearby plants. After several moments, Aziraphale pulled backwards so he could see Crowley’s face. His hands were still clasping Crowley’s shoulders. Crowley’s hands were still splayed around his middle back.

“Ought to have done this sooner, also,” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley’s throat worked, pale and gleaming in the low lantern light. His eyes were blown wide and his jaw rippled with the tension of holding back the words he so clearly wanted Aziraphale to say aloud. “Angel…”

“Shh.” 

Leaning forward, Aziraphale pressed his lips to Crowley’s. The demon startled, made a ragged sound, and responded in kind; before long, they were clutching each other just as tightly as before, only now the stillness had disappeared, replaced by small frenetic movements as they stumbled backwards toward the sea of cushions: Crowley sliding his hands beneath Aziraphale’s lapels as he pulled the angel down next to him; Aziraphale bending his head to lick and suck at the column of Crowley’s elegant throat as impatient hands pushed Crowley’s dark jacket from his shoulders; the demon’s long legs scrabbling for purchase as Aziraphale got a knee over his hips.

“Fucking  _ hell _ , angel.” When they next came up for air, Crowley’s loud, choked laugh was as musical as anything that was playing on the Victrola, and the rakish smile spreading across his face shone as brilliant as a nebula. “You gonna disssscorporate me?”

“Oh, be serious, my dear.” Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s face in both palms, and pretended to disapprove, although pleasure rippled through his stomach at the idea of getting Crowley so worked up.

“You are, though.” Crowley’s eyes had darkened to an autumnal gold. “With Bowie on the turntable, and all thissss  _ temptation  _ in my lap….”

“I didn’t realize the music changed,” sniffed Aziraphale. Pretending at primness was much easier when he couldn’t feel Crowley’s abdominal muscles contracting with each breath or the lean, bony hips shifting against his inner thighs.

“Courssssse you didn’t, angel.” Crowley grinned up at him; Aziraphale’s stomach jumped in delight as his demon surged forward for another kiss. “Blast it loud as you want.”

On that particular night, Crowley’s plants learned the melody line to a number of classic rock and roll songs, and became the only species of temperate plants in London who could sing both  _ Moonage Daydream  _ and a variety of 1940s standards in sixteen dead languages.

**Author's Note:**

> First: thanks to my partner in art, @jules-al-c, for their patience and hard work!
> 
> Second thanks is to my ride-or-die bitches melliejellie and MasterofAllImagination, for assuring me that this fic was ok to post and was not a total disaster. Y'all are the editorial MVPs.
> 
> Third, some actual notes:  
> 1\. [The love song cover that started it all.](https://open.spotify.com/track/5kOBEsqVNwi4udPRbagNIV?si=zkLl85Y9T8eSAuKQFquKCA)  
> 2\. [The song Aziraphale plays in the Bentley that reminds him of Vivaldi.](https://open.spotify.com/track/0d1kGhUxd3Tg93yK4XFFYG?si=btMLyP4YSValzgV5AuVjKQ) Easter egg because Amanda Palmer! <3  
> 3\. Sounds of the Universe is an actual record shop which you can visit in central London. No clue what it looks like, as I picked it from a list because it was closest to the fictional bookshop.  
> 4\. [Bach's Canzona in Dm for your listening enjoyment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FGClX2rnDo).  
> 5\. Yes, plants do sing to each other! I based their "conversation" on this clip of [the singing plant concert at Damahur](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=SNr_JNvO_f8), but mainly used [this article](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-and-smell-and-respond) for all the wibbly wobbly science-y stuff.  
> 6\. [Solanum psuedocapsicum](https://www.alamy.com/winter-cherry-plant-or-jerusalem-cherry-solanum-pseudocapsicum-ornamental-plant-for-christmas-solanum-pseudocapsicum-berries-closeup-nightshade-image235473633.html) is, you guessed it, a varietal of nightshade. It is also called Jerusalem cherry. I have no idea how well it would grow in London for those of you who don't have demonic powers.


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